


Pretty Empty Minds

by TheIcyMage



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-04-06 22:53:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,273
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19072324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIcyMage/pseuds/TheIcyMage
Summary: Roman has a nightmare."What's got you so shaken, Princey? What, was I prettier than you."Yes, he was. And it was terrifying.





	Pretty Empty Minds

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope no one notices this. I just didnt want it deleted from my drafts. Oof.

"That's so bogus, 'D!" A familiar voice giggled.  
No, it couldn't be. Roman tried to look through the lion mask, but he could only make out a perfect face with two dazzling eyes. It was too symmetrical. If he took a meat cleaver down the middle of this stranger's face, he'd have two perfect halves. But that was to be expected of everyone here. This was Pretty territory, after all. Virgil was not Pretty, well...maybe he could be considered pretty, but not Pretty pretty. Besides, he was still of Ugly age and he had promised to run away before his birthday. This just had to be some random stranger who happened to have purple hair and brown eyes and who favored purple clothing and had an inexcusable large pair of headphones. Yes. This stranger looked nothing like Virgil. Acted nothing like Virgil.  
"It's true! There is an Ugly somewhere! It's hilarious! I swear, or your name isn't Virgil."  
A coincidence.  
"Dude, no way! Everything here is so fun and bubbly-making and dazzling and bubbly! An Ugly here is so not!"  
"Okay, but Randall said Taylor saw someone running around in a lion's mask and their knees were soooo knobby!" This D fellow laughed and Virgil-but-not-Virgil laughed along. His giggle was so bright and carefree and WRONG. It had to be fake.  
Roman waited for the other Pretty to leave before grabbing Virgil by the hood. Luckily this Virgil, no matter how wrong his mind was, still favored hoodies.  
"Virgil, what are you doing here?"  
The Pretty stared at him blankly. His eyes were dazzling-literally. Had he gotten glitter surgically implanted in his eyes? Holographic glitter was for nails and capes, not freaking eyeballs!  
"Oh my goodness!" The pretty giggled in shock and delight.  
"Whew! At least you recognize me! I've come to rescue you, my Shrieking Violet."  
"Yeah, dope! Deceit was right! That's so funny-making! Are you really an Ugly?"  
Whatever name was really said seemed dubbed over. The word "deceit" was said in a tone more familiar, but Virgil's lips didn't match up to what he was saying. Roban blinked before lifting his mask, "What was that? No, it doesn't matter. Virgil, it's me! Roman! Your best friend?" He held up his wrist to show the scar and traced over it mouthing, "Best friends forever."  
Virgil didn't mimic the motion. He only stared at his perfectly smooth wrist. The scar tissue was completely healed, cleared, smoothed over, erased. He looked up at his possibly former friend's forehead and wondered what else had been surgically cleared. Meanwhile, Virgil stared at him. He seemed to be going over every detail, every imperfection. When he met Roman's eyes, his own were glossed over and blank. It was as if he was looking at him without truly seeing him.  
"Oh! Ro-Man! Yo! I remember you! You were always a gnarly bro. No wonder you broke in, you crazy friend, you. That's so radical!" He patted Roman on the back, gave a full yet empty smile, and walked away.  
"Hey, 'D! You were right! He was UGLY! Man, this is why we're friends!"  
Alarms blared, but Roman could only watch as this ghost of a Virgil got smaller and smaller. A Pretty with golden eyes and an elaborate cape peeked into the hall, then returned with Virgil's arm locked with his. As the Pretties passed, the caped one turned his head and mouthed with a wicked grin, "He's mine!"

Roman woke up with a start. His heart was pounding and his mind was racing. Resting at the top of his dragon hoard of a bed was the first book of the Uglies series. He inched further away from it until he tumbled off of his bed, then to his door. Then, upon realizing he didn't know how to walk to his destination, he sunk out of his room.

-Roman goes to Virgil's room  
-Thomas had started reading The Uglies series  
-Roman tells Virgil about his nightmare  
-"What has you so shaken? What? Was I prettier than you?" Roman made a face. "Wait, really?"  
-Imperfections are what make us who we are  
-go over each Sides' strengths and flaws  
-Virgil says he shouldn't be alone right now. (Or in his room, honestly)  
-Implication that Virgil would hang out with Deceit when his panic attacks got bad, but VIrgil uses Thomas's friends as an example  
-Virgil worries about if Taylon and Joan will be able to help Thomas, if they would ever just laugh at his problems, if Thomas was taking away valuable time and energy from them. But virgil forces himself to ease up and let him go to his friends because they help.  
-They both know Remmy and are surprised that they know and can say his name to each other  
-"I guess since he's more of a function like Logan, he doesn't really take sides." Roman snorts. "Patton would be proud of you."  
-Logan doesn't know Remmy by name. He's never asked  
-"After I stopped...Affter things started changing...Rem started letting me hang out.  
"Why don't you just hang out with Remmy." "He's working. I don't want to ruin that." "You forgot you could go to him." "I...wanted to make sure my nightmare wasn't true." "Well, take a good look at me I guess. I'm deffinitely not pretty.""Well, at least not as attractive as me."  
-Remmy was the one to give Roman the nightmare. "Sorry to hurt you, Babe, but you two need to be closer. Our Virgie needs more Sides to trust, especially now that Pandora's bitchin' box has been ripped the fuck open."

 

Virgil, to his credit, was not asleep. He was in the process of listening the songs stuck in Thomas's head. While he had access to his own music, he didn't feel like closing himself in with his headphones. Not it his room. Too easy to fall into old habits. The chorus to "The Phoenix" looped for the fifth time and he was reaching for his headphones anyway when-  
"Greetings, my pretty anxious-addled friend."  
Virgil dropped his music device and the headphones fell behind him.  
"What the heck! A warning would be nice...er, I mean hi?" Roman's facial expression had the snide greeting fizzle in his mouth. "Can I help you?"  
Roman offered no response. He was staring, popping all around as if there was a fly attracted to his sour attitude and Roman was the dutiful knight in charge of catching it. The frenzy ended with Roman getting way too close to Virgil's face and grabbing his cheeks. His eyes darted around and he was tilting Virgil's head up and, yeah. Too much. Too close. Too much contact. Virgil backed away.  
"Boundaries, man! Please don't...or just warn..." Was what Virgil meant to say. Instead, he hissed and tried to make his stance bigger and more menacing.

"Hey, I just needed to make sure that you were real. No need to resort to hissing. I don't speak behemoth."  
"And I don't speak extra."  
"Dang it, Virgil! I didn't come here to fight."  
"Then can you just respect my boundaries. I don't like...touching."  
"...Oh." Roman blinked, "My apologies."  
"So, what do you come to help me help you with?"  
"What?"  
"You look like you are about to go on about something troubling me when really there's something bothering you and you don't know how to ask for help. Projecting like that makes communicating difficult."  
"I...Where did that come from?"  
"I am helping Pat and Logan work on Elliot's lines for Cartoon Therapy. Logan wanted to know what to ask Kati for accuracy.”  
“Huh,”  
“So, what’s bothering you and why did you go to me?”  
“Nightmare,” Roman started,  
“And?”  
“You were in it-but not as the villian. There was something..different about you.”  
“So you had a nightmare about me but not like I was chasing you. What?” Half of his mouth quirked up, “Was I prettier than you.” Virgil was not expecting the shocked horror that played across Roman’s face. “Wait, seriously?”  
"Yes." Virgil waited for Roman to continue, so he reluctantly relayed the events of the dream. "As you probably recal, Thomas has been revisiting Scott Westerfield's The Uglies series. You know, the futuristic setting where the values are beauty are blown so far out of proportion that one's stance as a pre-surgery and post-surgery change their lifestyle?"  
"I was there the first time he read it. I know the message. The world leaders control everyone by forcing a surgery on them where they turn everyone into perfect mindless models."  
"Right. So I was an Ugly sneaking into a Pretty party, and you were there. As a Pretty. With Deceit."  
There was a spectacle of emotions flashing across Virgil's face. Panic, fear, regret, anger, betrayal, worry, then he took a breath and forced a neutral mask.  
"That is terrifying."  
Roman didn't know what to say. Both stared at each other in silence.  
"Well, seeing that you are still you, I will take my leave. Your welcome for gracing you with my presence."  
"Wait." Neither seemed to believe Virgil's outburst. "You shouldn't be alone. You're still freaked and being alone won't help." Neither would being in Virgil’s room, to be honest. Alerady, Virgil could see the prince tapping his fingers over his sword hilt and shifting his weight from leg to leg.  
“Was my being a Pretty that bad. At least I wouldn’t be..me. Can’t get too messed up in the head if there’s nothing there, right? Or were you jealous.” The sooner they cut to the chase, the sooner this awkward conversation could and Princey could leave his room. (Though it wasn’t doing too much harm. Thomas was asleep and two thirds of the others were still fine. The Yerks-Dodson curve wouldn’t get too messed up.)  
“Absolutely not! That would not be true beauty. And don’t talk about yourself like that. That was my job!”  
“What would beauty be for you then? Because all that contouring and manipulation sounds like too much work.”  
“Perfection is imperfection.”  
Virgil gave him a blank stare. (An: Is this OOC? Would it be the other way around, with Virgil point out what Roman is about to?)  
“There is a balance to these things. You can’t feel happy unless you have lower points to compare it to. And you can’t be happy all the time. Patton was right; bottling up everything not happy is not healthy. Also, it isn’t natural to be absolutely perfect.”  
“Everybody’s got flaws, but with no flaws at all, we’re incomplete,” Virgil quoted. Roman began to sing along and was rewarded with an eyebrow quirk.  
“Right. Thomas needs you just as much as he needs me.”  
“Woah, careful. That almost sounded like a complement.”  
“That almost sounded like you taking it,”  
“I’m not above that.” Virgil shrugged.  
Roman chuckled. Then a thought occurred to him. “I can’t get over Deceit’s presence in the dream. It was so weird seeing you two getting along.”  
Virgil bit at his thumb, but offered no coment.  
“You were so...at ease around him. And he was possessive of you. Like he knew that it was weird, or like he had won something.”  
“He’s a dick and can suck on one.”  
“I did not need that visual.”  
“I didn’t need the visual of me and Deceit being friendly. It was a dream, dude. That’s not my department. You should talk to Remy about this.” He paused. He wasn’t expecting the name to actually come out. Normally it should have been obscured or censored in some way.  
“You know Remy?”  
“..Yes? Wait, put a pin in that. Why can we say Sleep’s name? Doesn’t Deceit have control over this?”  
“I guess since Sleep is a function, he doesn’t really take Sides.”  
“Nice. Patton would be proud.”  
“It would be a crime to not. I can’t believe Logan doesn’t know him. Actually, never mind, even if they did, I can’t see them spending time together. You and Remy don’t make much sense, but you make more sense.”  
"After I stopped...After things started changing...Rem started letting me hang out.  
Speaking of, why don't you just hang out with Remmy."  
"He's working. I don't want to ruin that."  
"You forgot you could go to him."  
"I...wanted to make sure my nightmare wasn't true."  
"Well, take a good look at me I guess. I'm definitely not pretty."  
"Well, at least not as attractive as me."  
Virgil snorted at that. Then he moved from his corner and gently shoved Roman. “Come on, we need to get you out of my room. You don’t have to go home, but ‘ya can’t stay here.”  
“Awww! But we were actually getting along.”  
“I never said I was going to leave you alone. Thomas always sticks around to help Talyn and Joan when either of them were in a bad headspace.”  
“The same goes for you, you know. You’re our friend. We’re a call away if you ever need help.”  
Virgil was totally getting red under his foundation. “Come on, Princey, I wanna watch Nightmare Before Christmas.”  
“Shouldn't I get to chose? I’m in more of a Paranorman mood.”  
“A non-Disney movie without singing? Who are you and what have you done with the resident drama queen?”

\--  
While the two Sides popped into Roman’s room and resurfaced Thomas’s memory of the Laika movie, a different pair of eyes were watching them in his Mind’s Eye.  
"Sorry to hurt you, Babe, but you two need to be closer. Our Virgie needs more Sides to trust, especially now that Pandora's bitchin' box has been ripped the fuck open."


End file.
